In a Heartbeat - Elizabeth Adler [12]
Ed could hear his own heart beating. It sounded so slow he found himself waiting for the next leaden thunk, wondering if it was going to make it. Drugged with morphine to ease the pain, he felt a kind of false peacefulness, hardly aware of his physical self except for that slow-thunking heart.
He drifted between a state of conscious thought and periods of time when there was simply blackness: a dark, warm feeling, like the blood being pumped through his body by that machine. And then there was another layer under that blackness, a hidden part that never surfaced in his day-to-day life. Hadn’t for years . . . not since he was a boy and had buried those memories. . . .
He was thinking of the past now, though unwillingly, wondering if this was what it meant to have your life flash before your eyes in the final seconds.
Oh, God, he thought, I don’t want to remember this, I’ve buried it all in the past. . . . I want to be back in the Cessna, my sturdy little winged horse, flying back to Zelda again. . . . Oh, God, Zelda, why, why . . . why?
Camelia took another sip of bitter coffee from a paper cup. Feeling that familiar acid twinge in his stomach, he tossed the cup into the trash can. He wondered how many such drinks he had consumed in twenty-six years of being a cop. Should he ever have the misfortune to end up on a marble mortuary slab, when the M.E. cut open his stomach it would look like a rusty old iron tub, brown and pitted and scarred with acid. Jeez, he should give up the stuff right now. And he would have, if only he didn’t enjoy it so much.
The uniform sitting outside the ICU was trying hard to stay awake. He was all of twenty, and right now his head kept dropping onto his chest. Camelia grinned. He didn’t blame him. Hospital duty was a boring detail.
He took out an Interdent and probed his gums. Dammit, he would have to make time to get to the dentist soon. His gums were sore as hell. The door opened and the ICU nurse emerged. The uniform was on his feet, alert in an instant.
Camelia had just found a sore spot with the Interdent. “How’s he doin’, Nurse?” he mumbled.
She threw him a withering glance and he hastily removed the toothpick.
“Mr. Vincent is still in a coma, Detective. There’s no communication with him. Right now, he’s being kept alive by machines. We can only hope for an improvement.”
Camelia nodded. “Thanks, Nurse.” He might as well go home.
“Hey, Brotski,” he said to the uniform, “take a break. Get a cup of coffee and a doughnut. Wake yourself up a bit. I’ll stay here till you get back.”
The young officer’s face brightened. “Thanks, sir. I appreciate that. It’s kinda slow out here, puts a guy to sleep.”
Camelia watched him striding away. His uniform seemed too big for his skinny frame, and his pale orange hair had an unruly cowlick. He looked very young. He sighed. They weren’t making cops the way they used to when he was a rookie. Then, everyone had been over six feet, big and burly. Except himself, of course.
He took Brotski’s seat outside the ICU. Arms folded, head tilted back, he stared at the ceiling, thinking about Ed Vincent. He wondered why he was such a reclusive kind of guy in his personal life. And why he never talked about his past. Did he have something to hide?
Down the hall, the elevator pinged and the doors slid open. Camelia turned to look. A woman was hurrying down the long shiny corridor, half walking, half running. She was tall, slender, awkward as a teenager in her high heels. Short-cropped golden-blonde hair, huge anxious brown eyes, long, suntanned legs, and a very short skirt. Definitely not New York. He stood as she approached.
“Is this the ICU? Where Ed Vincent is?” She hitched the strap of her bag onto her shoulder and tugged at her short skirt. She was breathing heavily and looked tired and disheveled.
“Why do you want to know that, miss?”
“Are you the doctor?” She clutched his arm, gazing beseechingly at him. “Oh, thank God, I need to talk to you. Just tell me Ed’s going to be all right. Tell me he’s going to live, Doctor. Please.”
Camelia glanced